Google Drive - Shared Drives
On This Page
- 1 Overview
- 2 Creating connection | User Interface
- 3 Features and Limitations
- 4 Create connection | REST API
Overview
The Google Shared Drives connector in DryvIQ allows you to analyze, migrate, copy, and synchronize files between your Google Shared Drives and cloud storage repositories and on-premise network file shares. The first step is to create the Google Shared Drives connection by providing the connection information required for DryvIQ to connect to the shared drives.
Migrating documents from Google Shared Drive requires a Google Workspace service account with administrative privileges. The service account allows the DryvIQ Platform to act on behalf of users using the Google Workspace API. Refer to Creating a Google Workspace Service Account for instructions on how to create the service account.
Creating connection | User Interface
Select Connections > Add connection.
Select Google Drive - Shared Drives as the platform on the Add connection modal.
Enter the connection information. Reference the table below for details about each field.
Test the connection to ensure DryvIQ can connect using the information entered.
You will see a "Connection test succeeded" message on the Add connection modal when DryvIQ establishes the connection. (If you don't see this message, verify the information you entered.)
Select Done.
Add connection modal - Google Drive - Shared Drives
Field | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
Display as | Enter the display name for the connection. If you will be creating multiple connections, ensure each connection's name readily identifies it. The name displays in the application, and you can use it to search for the connection and filter lists. The maximum length is 255 characters. | Optional |
Service Account Email | Enter the email address created during the Service Account creation process. It will resemble | Required |
Private Key | Enter the private key required to access the drive. This is the value created when creating the new private key when creating a new Service Account in the Google IAM & admin Console. It will begin with " | Required |
Subject Email | Enter the email address for the root account containing the data to be transferred. | Required |
Domain | Enter the target domain name. For example, your-domain.com. If you do not include the domain for the Subject Email, you must include the domain in this field. This domain will then be used for the account. | Optional |
Token Uri | Enter the custom authentication URI. If not supplied, the default is used - https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token. | Optional |
Preserve content type | Indicate if DryvIQ should try to preserve files in their original content type. This feature is mainly used for Google-to-Google transfers. The default value is No. This means that an upload content type is not specified. Most files will still preserve content types. However, Google native documents and Microsoft Office files will transfer as Microsoft Office files. Selecting Yes will preserve files in their original content type. Google native documents will transfer as Google native documents. Microsoft Office files will transfer as Microsoft Office files. | Optional |
Import as Google native documents | Indicate if DryvIQ should import Microsoft Office documents as Google documents. This feature is mainly used when transferring from any platform, such as Box to Google. The default value is No. This means Microsoft Office files will be preserved as their original content type. Selecting Yes will import all Microsoft Office files as Google native documents. | Optional |
Behavior when deleting files | Select the delete DryvIQ should perform when deleting items: Permanent or Soft. Soft delete is the default delete behavior; however, Permanent is the recommended behavior. A soft delete marks items as deleted. You can still access them to restore or permanently delete the items. A permanent delete removes the items. This deletion is not reversible. | Optional |
Allow file discovery | Indicate if files with shared links should be searchable. The default value is No. This means that only users who have been granted access to the file can find and access it. Selecting Yes sets the "People can search for this file" setting in the file link settings to TRUE. This means any files with shared links can be found and accessed by any user through the search. | |
Use domain admin access | Indicate if you want to allow domain-level administrator access to all Google shared drives, regardless of membership. The default value is No. This means the connection can only access shared drives that the administrator is a member of. Selecting Yes allows the connection to access all shared drives in the administrator's domain/enterprise. | Optional |
Features and Limitations
Platforms all have unique features and limitations. DryvIQ’s transfer engine manages these differences between platforms and allows you to configure actions based on Job Policies and Behaviors. Utilize the Platform Comparison tool to see how your integration platforms may interact regarding features and limitations. Below is a list of supported and unsupported features, as well as additional file/folder restrictions.
Supported | Not Supported | Other Features and Limitations |
|---|---|---|
File size maximum: 5 TB | ||
Author/Owner preservation | Path length maximum: None | |
Segment path length: 500 | ||
Restricted types: See Restricted Types below. | ||
Permission preservation | No leading spaces in file name/folder name | |
No trailing spaces before or after file extensions | ||
Author Preservation/Audit Trail Preservation
The Google Shared Drive connector uses per-request impersonation. When Google Drive is the destination connection, DryvIQ must make requests to the platform on behalf of the account owner, not the administrator. To ensure “Created By” and “Modified By” dates are preserved during migration, the destination connection must also impersonate the corresponding account owner.
DryvIQ supports author preservation in Shared Drives. It does this by impersonating the user who last modified the file when uploading the file. However, there are some limitations:
The impersonating author must have access to the shared drive. If the job transfers the shared drive and its permissions, the source must have these permissions in place in the corresponding folder.
DryvIQ cannot preserve the audit trail for external or deleted accounts, as they cannot be impersonated.
Externally Shared Content Box to Google
Externally shared content will migrate from Box to Google. The external users will receive an email notification from Google indicating that content has been shared with them. On the Google platform, you can see the permissions applied to the external collaborator under “Manage Access.”
Google Shared Drive Limits
Google limits the number of items, members, and daily uploads in shared drives. Refer to Google's Shared Drive limits documentation for more information.
Path Lengths
Google does not impose restrictions on the total path length.
Segment path lengths are limited to 500 characters. Segments are delimited by a forward slash (/). For example, <max 500 characters>/<max 500 characters>.
Permissions
In Shared Drives, DryvIQ can assign the following permissions:
Permissions are supported at the Shared Drive level (membership)
A Shared Drive is comparable to a SharePoint Library.
Permissions for folders within the Shared Drive are supported.
Permissions for files within the Shared Drive
External/Internal file permissions can be added if they are not a part of the membership, but this must be configured in Shared Drives before it will work.
File Type Handling
Google Shared Drives include the following file type behaviors and considerations. DryvIQ processes content as described below.
Google Documents
Google-native file types (such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides) do not have direct equivalents outside of Google Drive. Although some platforms, such as Box and Dropbox, support Google Docs, DryvIQ does not currently support transferring them to Google Shared Drives. During migration, these files are automatically converted to Microsoft Office formats:
Google Docs converts to DOCX files.
Google Slides converts to PPTX files.
Google Sheets converts to XLSX files.
Google Drawings converts to SVG files.
Google Apps Script converts to JSON files.
After processing, the Processing Overview identifies how files were handled:
Native Export indicates files converted from Google-native formats.
Extension Corrected indicates files where extensions were updated to match the file type.
These categories can be selected to filter results and review affected files. This behavior is also available in simulation mode.
Google Sheets Formula and Function Handling
Google Sheets files are converted to .xlsx format using Google’s native export functionality during migration. DryvIQ does not perform any custom formula translation or modification.
As a result, formula behavior depends entirely on how Google handles the export:
Formulas: Common formulas are typically converted to their Excel equivalents.
Functions: Google Sheets may contain functions that Microsoft Excel does not support. When a Google Sheet is converted to Excel format, DryvIQ detects unsupported Google-specific functions and marks the file as “Revised” in the job results. A warning is also written to the job log identifying the unsupported functions detected in the file. Review the job log after the migration completes to identify Google Sheets that may require manual review or formula updates.
If formula accuracy is critical, review exported files after migration to confirm results.
Microsoft Office Documents
When transferring Microsoft Office documents to Google Shared Drives, you can choose to either keep their original format or import them as Google Docs when setting up the connection.
Google Shortcut Links
Google does not allow downloading native link files that appear on its platforms. DryvIQ will filter these files out of the migration job and log the reason for skipping them for reference.
File Type and Extension Handling
Files stored in Google Drive with a generic or unrecognized type (for example, application/octet-stream) are treated as unknown file types during migration.
In these cases:
Original file names are preserved.
Existing extensions remain unchanged.
Files without extensions remain unchanged.
No additional extensions are appended.
This ensures that files arrive at the destination with the same name as the source and prevents unintended extensions (such as .bin) from being added.
Non-Transferable File Types and Elements
The following file types and elements cannot be transferred.
Google Forms, Fusion Tables, Sites, and My Maps are not available for download in Google Shared Drives. This means DryvIQ is prevented from transferring these items. The expected behavior is that the item will be flagged with the error message "IO Violation and message:Downloading content is not supported for file...".
Google Workspace Marketplace content is not transferable.
Comments in Docs, Sheets, and Slides are not transferable.
You cannot transfer permissions to folders other than the shared drive.
You cannot transfer demoting permissions (disinheritance).
Root File Transfers
You cannot transfer files to the root of your Google Shared Drives connection. Folders transferred to the root of the Google Shared Drives connection will be created as Team Drives.
Shortcut Links
Google does not allow downloading native link files that appear on its platforms. DryvIQ will filter these files out of the migration job and log the skipped reason for reference.
Slashes in Folder Names
Forward slashes (/) are invalid characters; however, DryvIQ allows “/” in folder names only when manually building the job path in the user interface. If you copy and paste the root path with a “/“ in a folder name when creating the job, it will fail to run. Also, you cannot include a slash in a folder name when creating a job using the DryvIQ REST API.
Versioning and Simulation
For Google-native documents, only the size of the current version can be calculated via the API. When running a simulation job with versioning enabled, only the size of the current version of the file will be shown. The size of the other versions will not be calculated for these documents.
Create connection | REST API
The sample code below shows how to create a shared drive connection that uses impersonation. Make sure the following fields are set accordingly.
The client_email should be the Google Workspace Admin Service Account.
The subject should be the user's email address you would like to impersonate.
POST {{url}}v1/connections
{
"name": "Google Shared Drives",
"type": "service_account",
"project_id": "your-project-id",
"platform": {
"id": "google-teams"
},
"auth": {
"private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----...-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
"client_email": "your-service@your-project-id.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
"client_id": "12345678901234567890",
"subject": "youradmin@example.com",
"delete_behavior": "permanent"
}
}